Schools minister Nick Gibb makes a classic mistake by assuming that unless schools become academies they can’t be innovative (“Independence does not mean isolation”, 13 January). What rubbish. Great schools have always been highly creative and done fabulous things that some dull academies are just waking up to. Mr Gibb seems to be under the delusion that we are straitjacketed and need academy reforms to break free.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) may be right about autonomy equalling success, but who said that local authority schools can’t be autonomous? Mr Gibb’s article was a cry of political desperation over common sense.

Dominic Cragoe, Head of Sheringham Community Primary, Norfolk.